🔗 Share this article

Mali has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a acute petrol shortage resulting from a embargo on energy resources implemented by militant groups.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of employees and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He asserted that the administration were “working tirelessly” to alleviate the crisis so that classes could resume on 10 November.

For weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, particularly in the administrative center, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a blockade by striking fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are delivered by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been forming around fuel outlets in the capital in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The junta-led administration had previously reassured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has continued.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and increasing safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by the military leader, who took control in a military overthrow in 2021.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it took power, promising to tackle the ongoing instability prompted by a independence uprising in the north by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been sent in 2013 to address the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the current administration has contracted Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

However, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the north and east of the country remain not under administrative command.